Corruption of the Mind
by AKA
Summary: It was all coming together...Morceau's treason, Lili's nightmares, Razputin's visions. They all added up to one, single terrible truth. Now, forced to disobey direct orders, Raz and the others plan a daring rescue mission.
1. The Door Has Opened

**A/N: **Be easy on me. This is my first Psychonauts fic and the first time I've tried my hand at writing for quite awhile. Constructive criticism is welcome.

**Disclaimer: **Look, I live in Kansas and write fanfics in my spare time.

**Psychonauts: Corruption of the Mind**

Within the confines of one of the most advanced laboratories in the world, bathed in the dim lighting provided by computer monitors and what little light Sheegor had left on. Down here, within the cold confines beneath the Geodesic Psycho Isolation Chamber, two beings stood. One was munching happily on a piece of cake, his little turtle legs carrying him in his search for any crumbs he may have dropped. The other, a tall, pale man with dark glasses covering his eyes and a carefully neutral expression on his face, hunched over a monitor.

He was a renowned scientist, one of the best researchers employed in the Psychonauts, and matched only in his psychic prowess by the Mental Minx. He had fought psychic terrorists, delved into the most twisted of minds with little hesitation, lived through nightmares that would drive lesser men insane…

…And through all of that, he had noticed a pattern. It was faint at first, but it was becoming more and more apparent by the day.

It was the blackest of thoughts. The darkest desires of the human mind. The kind most people have during moments of extreme frustration and anger--"I wish that bastard would rot from the inside out!" "That asshole needs to _burn._" "I'll kill him one of these days. Make him suffer."--and immediately discard, locking them up in a forgotten part of their mind along with their shame at thinking such thoughts.

It is in that corner where it begins. An entrance is made, a door opened. Those thoughts, left untended, are often shackled down with shame, cellmates with a furious rage kept silent. They give birth to nightmares, hallucinations, manias... Things that eat away at a person's sanity, overpower their censors, and splinter their personality. These inner demons often created a doorway leading to other twisted minds.

The Black Spiral. The Shadowed Labyrinth.

They had many names for it, but it was a rare Psychonaut would speak of it, even if they knew it. Those who stumbled into the dark recesses of another's mind inadvertently peered too long into the Shadowed Labyrinth; most were doomed to fall to insanity. Some of the best minds the Psychonauts had ever seen were lost to this strange occurrence. It was found in every mind, young or old. In some minds it could barely be seen; in others, its presence is so obvious that some of the bravest Psychonauts grow pale with fear and refuse to set foot inside the mind. Studies suggested that it was part of the reason why Ford Cruller's psyche couldn't be healed. It was one of the largest mysteries in Psychonauts history--and one of Sasha Nein's obsessions.

For the past five years, he studied it closely. Going so far as to create a machine that allowed psychics to traverse through their own mind. Seeking it out in the minds of his students and colleagues who shared his interest in tracking it and, God willing, finding a way to reverse its effects on Cruller's mind. He was careful, though, to keep others from wandering into it and stayed cleared of it himself. It was a fascinating mystery, yes--but it was also dangerous. Over the course of his studies he had learned several things about it. It was the mirror of the Collective Unconsciousness and, theoretically, could be used to visit the minds of those a Psychonaut had never met before.

Recently, that theory was put into practice and proven.

Morceau Oleander's treason. Ford Cruller's shattered psyche. Lili's nightmares. The strange visions Rasputin witnessed within his own mind. Sasha understood now that these were all connected, and all came from the same source.

Somehow, someone has found a way to use the Black Spiral. And they were using it to destroy the Psychonauts from the inside out.

And they just succeeded in kidnapping the Grand Head of the Psychonauts.

Spitting out a harsh curse in his native language, Sasha Nein whirled away from the console and sprinted out of his lab in a flurry of motion that left the only other inhabitant of the lab spinning in his shell.

The door has opened.


	2. Divide and Conquer

**A/N:** Wow, I hadn't expected to get such a good response so quickly. Thank you for your time, everyone! I hope you find this chapter as enjoyable as the last…and if you don't, let me know why, m'kay? Can't fix it if I don't know it's broken.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Divide and Conquer**

Somewhere along the east coast, a very sleek jet was parked outside of highly secured building in a private airstrip. Despite the fact that the sun was shining brightly and the birds surrounding the area were chirping happily with the squirrels, the mood surrounding the building was decidedly dark. Heavily armed soldiers patrolled the perimeter of the building and across it. At every entrance there stood two more soldiers, standing at stiff attention. The air was charged, full of energy. It was the feeling of a battle fought and lost, and the anticipation of more battles to come. Battles that the defenders were in no way prepared for.

Inside the jet, the feeling was even more pronounced. Morceau Oleander sat in the pilot's seat, tapping his fingers along the console nervously. A lockdown. One that was almost complete, apparently. Sasha and Razputin approached the guards and received a rude welcome, at least as far as Oleander could see. The guards had refused entrance to Razputin, sending him back to the jet, where he now sat in sullen silence behind Oleander. Sasha had been forced to go to great lengths to prove that he was who he said he was, and even then, only grudgingly. When Lili and Milla tried to gain entrance, they repeated the process on Milla and told Lili that this was no place for a child. She begged to differ. They tried to force her to leave--and earned second degree burns for their trouble. Lili was not a Psychonaut, but she was the Grand Head's daughter and that tended to give one a certain amount of power. Ford hadn't even bothered to step outside of the jet; there was a large concentration of psitanium inside of it, and if he wandered too far away, he'd slip into one of his other personalities. The former Grand Head gave sympathetic ear to Raz's indignant fury at being turned away even though he was a full-fledged Psychonaut.

Oleander wasn't sure if they would allow him inside; and he frankly wasn't willing to give it a try. Not after all of the trouble he had caused. According to Nein, he had been under the influence of something he called the Black Spiral. The German man had then gone into a lengthy explanation that Oleander wasn't quite able to follow, but he found it reassuring nonetheless. Milla said it was Sasha's way of saying he forgave Oleander for kidnapping him, stealing his brain, and then attacking him with a giant psychic death tank. Oleander wondered why the man didn't just outright say it, but, he mused, Sasha was as much of a mystery to others as his experiments are to him.

A few moments later, Sasha walked stiffly back into the jet and silently sat down in his chair near the door. He seemed to take no notice of the fact that everyone's attention was focused on him. Five minutes passed before Ford finally got fed up with waiting and threw one of his bunny slippers at the back of Sasha's head where it bounced off and landed on the ground beneath Sasha's chair.

"Don't keep us waiting, Nein! What the hell happened in there?"

"Truman Zanotto was kidnapped only a few days ago. The same day that Rasputin snuck into our camp." Said Psychonaut grinned at the memory. "It seems some of our most trusted agents have turned on us; Zanotto was subdued and kidnapped by his own bodyguards."

Oleander fidgeted in his seat. "Think they were controlled by that black whatchamacallit? The thing you said made me go FUBAR?"

Sasha nodded. "The Black Spiral. I believe so." He paused for a moment. "But they do not."

Raz blinked, "What? They don't believe you? Let me go in there; I"ll talk with 'em--"

Sasha interrupted him. "They will not listen to you, Raz."

"Well...why not?"

Sasha sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in an unusual display of emotion--specifically, that of annoyance. It was not directed to anyone in particular, mostly just the senior agents of the Psychonauts. They had outright refused to believe Sasha's theory and insinuated that his proximity to psitanium and Cruller was having an effect on his thought processes. What was worse, they did not even acknowledge Razputin as a Psychonaut; they said it was simply too unbelievable that a child was capable of doing all that Sasha claimed he did. The fact that he was appointed as a Psychonaut by Cruller did nothing to persuade them since they saw Cruller as a doddering old fool with more personalities than fingers. He was doing his best to try and think of a way explain the situation to Razputin, a child that shared remarkable similarities with Nein himself when he was a child. Finally, he had an idea.

"Very well." Raz focused his attention on his mentor intently. "Say, for example, that a young woman who has six children experiences terrible birthing pains during the process. A male doctor informs her that the reason she experienced such pain is because she had not breathed correctly."

"O-kay..."

"Whose opinion would you choose to believe more? The doctor or the woman?"

"The woman."

"Why is that? What does she have that the doctor doesn't?" He looked at his young student expectantly.

Raz's response was immediate and triumphant. "A vagina!"

Fifteen minutes and two cigarettes later, Sasha returned with a different tactic. Sometimes it just wasn't possible to lead Raz to an answer--you had to tell it to him outright. "Experience, Rasputin."

The young Psychonaut looked up at Sasha curiously. "Experience?"

"While your answer was...unique...the reason most people would take the woman's word over the doctor's is because she has actual experience in child birthing."

"So...you're saying that the reason the senior agents wouldn't listen to me is because they think I don't have any experience?" At Sasha's nod, Raz frowned. "But I have plenty of experience! I went into crazy people's brains! I defeated Napoleon Bonaparte!"

Ford finally spoke up from the chair across from them. "Yeah, but yer still a kid to 'em, Razputin. We believe ya, but they don't." He suddenly looked much older. "Y'know, the Psychonauts weren't always this fractured..."

Oleander's rough voice came into the conversation. "What about Milla? She went in there to find out who's working on the case, right?"

Once again, Sasha nodded. "Correct. She said she would be out in half an hour. Give her forty-five minutes."

It was at that moment that Milla and Lili walked back into the jet. Lili's expression was tired, worn, and unspeakably angry. If it hadn't been for the fact that she had a boyfriend and life was actually beginning to get interesting, the past few days would have qualified as the worst of her life. First, she gets a cold…in summer. Then she gets kidnapped (she still had trust issues with flowers after that incident) and some dentist wearing a shower cap tries to remove her brain. Then her _dad_ gets kidnapped and all of the Psychonauts turn into a bunch of arrogant jerks! She seethed quietly, keeping her thoughts to herself as best she could. She seemed to have a problem with broadcasting her thoughts lately.

Milla followed after Lili and sat down beside Sasha, tossing her hair over her shoulder abruptly and looked around at the others. Her green eyes were narrowed, her delicate eyebrows pulled down, and her lips were thin lines. She stood there for a good five minutes before Ford's bunny slipper flew from the ground and smacked the back of her head.

"Out with it, Vodello! You an' Sasha, sheesh…"

Milla's shoulders sank. "They aren't giving us the case. That…that horrible little goblin in Networking—"

Lili supplied the name. "Kyle Andrews."

"—refused to even _tell _me anything! He said that it was being taken care of by someone else. Someone more 'qualified'." She spat that word out with such venom that the others sank back. Milla was always kind and warm; the sort of person you could go reveal your deepest secrets to knowing that she would keep it in the strictest confidence. "He told us to go back to Whispering Rock. Said he'd keep in touch."

"So, what? We're useless?" Oleander's voice grew louder, angrier. Everyone focused their attention on him. He jumped up to his feet—adding a total of three inches to his height. "We came all this way to help them and they tell us to go home? Who the hell's in charge? I'm gonna give 'em a piece of my—"

Sasha spoke up, his tone even and neutral. "Morry, you're letting your anger control you again. Please extinguish Agent Cruller's bunny slipper."

Oleander froze in midstep, frowning. He lost control again…and the evidence of that was as clear as day. Probably clearer since the smoldering bunny slipper caused a thin layer of smoke to hang in the air. He turned to the others, looking frightened and embarrassed. He had lost everyone's trust only a few short days ago and he seemed to be making it worse. Regaining that trust was one of his highest priorities. "I-I'm sorry…"

"It's alright, darling. Just sit down with us." Milla offered him a small smile. "And don't worry. We're going to help find Truman."

"Yeah, whether they like it or not!" Lili said with steel in voice and determination in her eyes. Raz nodded in agreement.

Sasha looked at the others. How they exactly they planned to accomplish this was beyond him. They were locked out of headquarters; Andrews made sure of that. He doubted anyone would share information with them. Andrews was effectively the Grand Head in absence of Truman, and even though Cruller had a number of supporters, most agents were still wary of his fractured psyche. They wouldn't be able to get any information using Cruller's name. What they were suggesting was nothing short of insubordination, but… What else could they do?

"I assume you two have a plan?"

A heavy silence fell after Sasha's question. And it grew by the second. Short of infiltrating their own base and stealing the information they needed—becoming psychic terrorists in the process—they could do nothing.

The sound of a man clearing his throat broke that silence. He wore the Psychonauts uniform, and had his dark brown hair cropped short, the color matching the color of his eyes and the stubble beneath his chin. He was as tall as Sasha and a little older. Needless to say, everyone's attention turned towards him. When the man spoke, it was a in a surprisingly soft voice that carried irrefutable authority in its tone.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance…"


	3. Broken Mirrors

**Chapter Three: Broken Mirrors**

The man gave a friendly grin to the group and walked inside confidently, as if he didn't just intrude on the group's borderline treasonous talk. He did not seem to be arrogant, though it was clear no one seemed to know just who exactly he was. Raz looked over at Lili who shrugged; she had no idea who this guy was either. Milla looked curious, and a bit wary, but other than that she seemed calm, if a little confused. Oleander gave an outright glare at the stranger; that was the second time that someone had snuck in on his watch, Razputin being the first. Sasha watched the man closely, an unseen variable making its presence known in an experiment.

The stranger stood before Ford and gave a sharp salute as he spoke in that same soft, yet commanding voice. "A pleasure to see you again, sir. I've got the information you requested." Raz suddenly noticed that the man was holding a small zip disk in his gloved hand.

"Eh, at ease Larry. Y'know you don't have to be formal around me." Ford was inspecting the damage done to his bunny slipper, half of which was burned black and still smoking.

"Old habits die hard, Agent Cruller." Larry still had that friendly grin on his face as he handed the disk to Cruller and then clasped his hands behind his back, still standing at attention.

"Yeah, I know. Everyone, meet Larry Williams." Cruller motioned over to the stranger with his burned shoe while he popped the disk into the console nearest him. Translucent screens appeared around Ford and circled him much in the same manner as the screens Raz saw in the man's sanctuary. This, of course, made it exceedingly difficult to read. "He's head of the Midwestern branch of the Psychonauts, based out of Cedar, Kansas. He's the one who helped find th' parts fer yer brain tumbler, Sasha. Now, all of you make nice while I read this, ya hear me?"

One of Sasha's eyebrows quirked. The man couldn't be all that bad, then. The parts required to create the Brain Tumbler were highly advanced and often very hard to track down. He had enlisted Ford's help after several months of unsuccessfully finding them on his own, and the very next day after seeking Ford's help, he recieved several boxes full of the parts he sought--as well as spares, a list of everything in the box, and suggestions on how best to use them. He also found a condom; Sasha decided that it was best to ignore that.

"A pleasure to meet everyone." Larry smiled once more, completely at ease. He seemed to be very friendly, and gave off the vibe of a gentle and somewhat mischevious uncle. The man's eyes glanced across the other agents before settling on Raz. He turned away when Oleander spoke to him, though.

"Kansas? That's a backwater post for someone of your rank, Agent. Who'd you piss off?" Oleander gave the man a measuring look. He seemed harmless, but looks were all too often deceiving. Even if Cruller seemed to be completely at ease with the man, he was suspicious.

Larry only gave a wry smile and winked to Milla. "That horrible little goblin from Networking is not above petty rivalries, apparently. He saw me as an obstacle to gaining rank, and...well, he made sure that I was put someplace out of the way." A slight shrug followed. "He's been putting all of the 'troublemakers' in my branch, hoping they disappear or make me look incompetent. Naturally, they only cause trouble when I'm not around."

Something clicked in Milla's mind. She vaguely recalled reading an article once when she went to consult Ford in his sanctuary. Her green eyes narrowed and her previously warm voice turned cold. "Isn't your branch the one that was responsible for the incident in Australia?"

Oleander growled. "Where those junior agents burned that man alive? Trapped him inside some building and set it on fire."

Sasha had been reading over Ford's shoulder and speaking with him quietly while the others talked. Lili and Raz had been peering over Ford's other shoulder, but gave horrified looks towards the group at Oleander's statement. Sasha merely quirked a brow. That story had been in the international news for weeks; half the town had been burned to ruins. That only one man had died was a miracle. But...to find out that _Psychonauts _casued it?

The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. There would always be questions about that incident, he knew that. And he had a feeling that he would always have to answer for that disaster, as those agents were his responsibility. "There is more to that story than what you read in the news--"

Cruller's voice cut in, sharp and authoritative. "Morry, start the jet." Ford popped the disk out of the console, his face drawn tight as Sasha slammed the door shut through telekinesis and strapped himself into his own seat. Raz and Lili both skittered back to their own seats, looking vaguely confused. "Larry, sit down and put your seatbelt on."

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd get to that part of the report." Larry muttered, quickly moving into a seat near the back as Oleander saluted and fired up the engines to the jet. Milla gave Sasha a questioning look, one he simply ignored. Milla briefly considered setting his hair on fire, but given the circumstances, decided against it. She didn't know how long they'd be stuck inside the jet, and an angry Sasha was a lot like having a pissed off cat. You weren't quite sure what it was going to do, or what it was plotting to get back at you, but you knew that it wasn't going to be pleasant.

The jet shot up under Oleander's guidance, circling up and away from the sleek building and private airstrip, heading west at Ford's direction. The silence lasted for about three minutes, when Raz, unable to help himself, spoke.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" A sharp glare from Oleander did nothing to silence the young Psychonaut. "Seriously--this guy comes in and everyone's okay with it and then Agent Cruller gets spooky on us and makes us fly out like a bat out of hell..."

"They're going to splinter Truman's mind." Sasha's voice was surprisingly calm, as if he were only commenting on the weather.

Raz blinked as Lili stared at Sasha blankly. "Like they did to Agent Cruller?"

Sasha looked towards Ford before looking back to Raz. He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Cruller. "No, Raz. I did that to myself."

"You _what? _Why?" Raz stared at Cruller in shock.

Cruller sighed. "I had to make a difficult choice, and chose the lesser of two evils. Got caught in a psychic duel with one of the most powerful terrorists the world had ever seen--he was also buggier than horse crap!"

"But...what made you destroy your own mind?" The young man just seemed lost.

Oleander spoke up then, his voice quiet, though it still held that seemingly constant undertone of anger. "You've never gotten into a psychic duel, private. You don't know what its like to fight another psychic."

Raz blinked. "But I faced you--"

"You faced my _brain_, not me in the flesh. It took Sasha, Milla, and Ford to bring me down.Remember that, kid." Oleander whirled back around to the controls, growing silent.

If you're all done yappin', I'll continue. Geez, interrupt an old man in the middle of recounting a traumatic experience..." Raz looked back to Ford, blinking up across at him. "Bah, screw it."

Ford pulled a psychoportal from his pocket and tossed it up to his forehead. It was a smooth, black door with the Psychonauts insignia carved into it. The door swung open, and a strange light emitted from it. Raz grabbed his goggles from his backpack (he just couldn't seem to bring himself to throw them away) and strapped them across his head, lowering them down over his eyes. He was all set to jump in head first when Sasha, after receiving a sharp jab to his side from Milla, spoke up.

"Sir, is that wise? Razputin is still young, his mind is still developing, if he gets trapped--" He fell silent when Ford gave an irritable wave of his hand towards him.

"The kid's faced worse things than my mind, Sasha. Besides, y'know this door only leads to my memories. You helped design it, remember?"

Raz had a feeling that there was a lot more going on than he knew about, but...Well, how often did you get a chance to rifle through the memories of a multiple personality disorder ex-Grand Head of the Psychonauts? With a final adjustment of his goggles, Raz stared into the doorway to Cruller's mind and left his own body behind.

* * *

Raz found himself standing in the ruins of an office building, surrounded by rubble. Smoke hung in the air, seeping out from beneath a pile of smoldering debris. There was very little light--most of it seemed to come from a single flourescent bulb that was tilted at a dangerous angle, and even then the light flickered, shooting off arcs of sparks into the still air. The rest of the light came from the two dueling psychics standing in the middle of the room, circling each other and testing defenses with the occasional psi-blast or telekinetic shove. One was an older man, balding at the top with a small mustache above his lip, his brown eyes unevenly set across his head. He wore the tattered black uniform of a Psychonaut, parts of which were burned, other torn, and all of it was dirty. Raz recognized him as Cruller.

The other was a man he didn't recognize. In fact, Raz was barely able to see him--he moved with his face constantly in shadow, either by luck or design. His clothing was similar to Ford's, save for one telling difference--his clothing was not worn or dirty; in fact, it was in pristine condition. The man circled Cruller with an easy grace that suggested knowledge of both martial arts and acrobatics. He sent a psi-blast towards Cruller, who deflected the shot with his shield.

"C'mon, old man...this is getting boring. I just need some information." The man's voice was smooth, silky. It was the kind of voice that promised nothing but good things--it was the voice of a serpent offering an apple to young woman.

"Ha! Over my dead body!" Ford returned fire with his own blast, temporarily lowering his shields in to aim properly. The other man sidestepped the blast and immediately seized Cruller by the neck through telekinesis, lifting him up off of the ground.

_"Agent Cruller!"_ Raz screamed and jumped forward--only to find himself rooted to that same spot on the floor. A voice entered his mind. Milla's voice, warm and gentle. _This is a memory, darling. You can only watch. _

The shadowed man sighed, tightening his 'grip' on Ford's neck. Ford's legs kicked out, his eyes were impossibly wide, and the sound of his gasping breath echoed in the broken room.

"You are a worthy opponent, Agent Cruller. My employers would have benefited from your skills, if you chose to accept our offer. We could have been partners..." He regarded the Psychonaut coolly for a moment before slamming Cruller into a pile of splintered and smoking wood that may have once been a desk. Cruller gave out a strangled cry.

Raz attempted to go to his mentor's aid once more. He couldn't just watch as this jerk tossed Cruller around like a rag doll! Milla's voice once again spoke to him, and there was a soothing edge to it. _Please, baby, just watch. You'll be stuck if you don't. It will be over soon..._

I even tried to strike a deal with you. All you had to do was tell me what I needed to know and I would have let you be. Yet you refused again..." He lifted Cruller up and brought him down to his eye level. "And now I have to rip into that powerful mind of yours and take what I need. If you have any last words, now would be the time to say them."

Cruller stared into the shadow--Raz suspected it was wherever the man's eyes should have been--and smirked. His rasping voice was steady. "Yeah. Stop, drop, and roll."

The shadowed man tilted his head slightly and gave a low chuckle--that quickly grew into a painful cry and finally into a terrified scream. Flames had erupted across the man's upper body and now licked hungrily through the cloth to the flesh beneath. He released Cruller in his panic, trying to beat out the flames that reached his face as he dove to the ground and rolled across broken glass, splintered wood, and twisted metal in his effort to put out the flame.

Cruller landed on the ground heavily, looking unsteady and drained. He pulled himself up and staggered a few feet away. He was alone in enemy territory, wounded, and near collapse. There was no way he could defeat this man--he was just too powerful. Neither could he give up the information the man sought. So he did the only thing he could do.

Ford, with as much psychic energy as he could muster, withdrew himself into his own mind and broke it apart. The effect was like taking a hammer to a mirror, with results just as immediate. He fell backwards into a pile of rubble, his eyes staring blankly up through a hole in the roof, to the stars above.

The room started to go dark as Cruller fell, so Razputin could barely hear the shadowed man's ragged breathing, his sharp curse, and finally the sound of his footsteps as he ran away.

* * *

He was flying. He could hear the engines churn, the gas bubble through pipes, the oil slipping through the gears.

There were voices echoing, floating around him. Razputin groaned, opening his eyes to find himself staring into the faces of his comrades. Lili was front and center, looking over Raz worriedly. When she saw he was awake, she promptly smacked him and then pulled him into a hug.

"Don't you ever do that again! Jerk."

Raz got the idea that Lili's way of showing affection involved bruising. He looked around with a dazed expression on his face, pulling the goggles up above his eyes.

Milla was giving him a concerned look. "Raz? Are you alright? You look pale, darling..."

Raz nodded dumbly, looking past her to Ford. His voice was subdued at first, but returned to its usual tone in a few short moments. "Who was that guy? What was he trying to find out?"

Larry, who had sat in silence throughout the entire ordeal, finally spoke up. "That man, the one in the shadows, is responsible for Truman Zanotto's kidnapping. Despite years of chasing him, we know precious little about him. We don't know his name, nor what he's planning, exactly, but based on our previous encounters, it can't be good. We do know where he is, however. That's why I was at headquarters, to report my findings."

Raz looked around. "If he's so bad, then why didn't that one guy--the Green Goblin--listen to you?"

"Politics, Razputin." Sasha's voice was low, tired. "One of the reasons why I did not volunteer for the Grand Head position when it became open. Andrews is a gloryhound, and he has always sought a way to gain more power. Rescuing Zanotto would put the Grand Head in his debt--putting him in a sort of power behind the throne position."

Raz grew quiet, looking down at the polished floor of the jet with a puzzled frown on his face. He had always seen the Psychonauts as the good guys. The ones that came in, saved the day, and occasionally taught a lesson to the general public. Yet, he found out that they were responsible for the death and destruction of half a town, discovered that they were capable of being greedy just as much as the next guy, and paranoid to boot. He became lost in his thoughts.

Lili just looked around and sighed. She had missed something, and no one seemed to be very forthcoming with any explanation. _Oh well, _she thought, _I'll just get Raz to tell me later._

Oleander spoke up from the controls. "Getting close to Cedar, sir."

Ford nodded, pocketing the black door. "Keep goin'." At Raz's curious look, he explained. "We headin' to Larry's base; he's got a fix on Shadow Man's location, but he doesn't have enough agents to make a move against him."

"So we're disobeying orders and, instead of going back to Whispering Rock like the Green Goblin told us to, we're going to help Larry rescue my dad." Lili grinned.

A few minutes later, a small alarm went off on Oleander's console. Sasha moved to stand over Oleander's shoulder, and spoke. "We're being hailed."

Larry spoke up, "Gentleman, allow me."

Oleander looked over to Ford for permission, and at his nod, opened the radio channel. A voice, covered in static, spoke through a speaker built into the console.

_"You are entering restricted airspace. Turn back now, or we will shoot you down."_

Larry, with a small grin, spoke. "This is Dumbledore. Is that you, Fearless Leader?"

The others stared at Larry as if he'd just lost his mind. A few moments later, the voice returned.

_"Yes, sir. Should I clear the road for you?"_

"Yes, please. And prepare the lodge for visitors."

_"Roger that, Dumbledore. Fearless Leader out."_

Larry directed Oleander to hover the jet over a thick forest, seemingly in the middle of the nowhere. They stayed in the air for a few moments, then slowly lowered to the ground--which was splitting apart to reveal a hangar beneath. Several small figures ran about on the ground, making preparations to receive the landing jet.

Raz stared in awe. "That is so _cool."_

Larry shot a grin to Raz as the jet set down on the ground and Oleander began to shut off the engines. "Welcome to the Shaded Glen, my friends. We're glad to have you."


	4. Beneath the Shaded Glen

**A/N: **Yeah, I know not a lot has been going on in the story lately, but try to bear with me. We'll get to the good stuff in the next chapter—an actual mission and, after that, a visit to the mental world. There'll be a lot more humor, too. Please tell me what you like and dislike about this story, alright guys? Any suggestions are more than welcome.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Beneath the Shaded Glen**

As the jet's engines began to slow and cool--emitting a high pitched whine in the process--the door was pulled open by a rather large man in a heavy work suit. He stood at an even six feet, his heavy frame packed with bulging muscle. His black hair was cut short--buzzed, actually--and emphasized his small eyes. In short, he looked like the poster boy for drill sergeants. The heavy door was secured open, giving everyone full access to a short ramp beyond it. He stared at the group gathered within for a few short moments before growling at them.

"Alright. You're landed. Get out so we can refuel and check this flying tin can over." With that said, he turned and left.

Raz blinked. "Um...thanks?"

Larry shook his head. "That's Agent Iceclaw. Don't mind him. He's like that to most everyone."

Oleander gave a wry grin, jumping out of his chair and stretching a bit as he walked towards the door. "I kinda like his style."

Milla stood up and stifled a small chuckle at Oleander's statement while Sasha snorted. "You would."

Once everyone made their way out of the jet, Larry gave them a tour of the facilities, introducing them to a few workers on the way. Raz noticed that the layout was similiar to Whispering Rock's--at least underground. They had a rapid transit system that was considerably larger than the one back at the camp. It had several cars instead of just one, and larger cars so that three or four people could ride together in relative comfort. They rode through one of the tunnels to stop just outside of a very secure door. On the way, Ford cycled through a few of his personalities before settling back into his original one. The older Agent shook his head, muttering.

"The psitanium's not as strong here..."

Larry gave him an apologetic look. "No, it isn't. There is a sizeable concentration of it in the next room, though its reach outside is somewhat lacking. Combined with the rock you've strapped to your back, it should be enough to keep you..." He trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

Ford gave a sardonic chuckle. "Sane? Bah, there's nothin' you can say to offend me, Larry."

"Right, well...Everyone, if you would follow me..." He pressed his hand into a panel next to the smooth doors, and a mechanical voice spoke as a light above the door turned from red to green.

_Welcome home, Agent Williams._

Inside was a wide array of very expensive, very sophisticated looking consoles and several large monitors facing them from the wall. It was all very sleek and modern, and kept immaculately clean. The floor was a smooth surface that gleamed from the soft lighting around the room. The sound of machines whirring created a steady background noise for the conversation being held within. Two agents sat in front of the consoles, speaking to each other in quiet tones that quickly turned silent at the group's arrival. They both stood and snapped to attention, saluting Larry then--with some hesitation--Sasha, Milla, Oleander, and Ford.

Raz noticed that they didn't even look at him. Just to the others...even though he was wearing his uniform! What did he have to do to prove himself to these people? Frustrated, the young Psychonaut walked inside with Lili, crossing his arms across his chest. Lili, for her part, just seemed bored, if a little peeved at everyone's attitude towards Raz.

"Impressive." Sasha had moved further in, examining one of the consoles and tapping a few of the controls with one gloved hand. The computers here were of a better quality than the ones he had back in his lab. Perhaps Agent Williams would be willing to part with one? Something to ask the man later.

"Thank you." Larry had an easy smile on his face--a permanent fixture it seemed--as he waved at the two agents. They both stood at ease. It seemed the man ran a tight ship in his base, something that Oleander hadn't failed to notice.

Milla just shook her head. The room was very utilitarian--no decorations, no style to speak of...It was all very boring. "Agent Williams, you said you had information on Truman's kidnapping?"

"Indeed. Agent DeLucion, report."

One young man, no taller than Larry, with dark hair black hair that almost seemed blue if it was caught a certain way in the light, stepped forward. There was small scar across his right eye--small enough that it was hard to see from afar, but large enough to see up close. His eyes were a strange yellow color and almost seemed lupine. His uniform was slightly rumpled, and he carried a rather large knife sheathed on his belt. His shoulders were tense and stooped forward as if he expected to be attacked. Everything about him hinted at a subtle anger.

"As of yesterday when the disappearance of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts was reported, our squad noticed suspicious activity--"

"We don't need all the nitty gritty details, kid. Get to the point." Ford was beginning to wonder what they taught today's Psychonauts. Was it a requirement to be longwinded? He'd have to talk to Truman about that when they got him back.

The man stiffened, and his eyes narrowed, but he saluted Cruller. "My apologies, sir. The short version, then. We found the terrorist commonly referred to as the 'Shadow Man' due to his ability to manipulate darkness, hidden in an old elementary school along the outskirts of town. We have several confirmed reports of his appearance and continued stay there."

Sasha scratched the bottom of his chin in thought. "Alone?"

"No, sir. There are several others with him, many of them known terrorists on our wanted lists. A few reports included the description of a man that matches Truman Zanotto's, though those are unconfirmed. One report even indicated a child was present, as well."

"A child?" ask Milla, looking concerned. The abilities of a psychic in unstable individuals such as those that tended to be terrorists often led to severe emotional trauma for their victims. That a child was in their custody…

He nodded. "We weren't able to determine the exact age of the boy, but we're guessing he's no older than seven years old. A hostage, perhaps."

Milla's voice grew tight. Raz could only imagine what exactly was going through her mind. "And why, exactly, haven't you done anything to rescue him or Truman?"

He bent down to tap a few keys across the console, bringing up a picture of the front of an old, dilapidated school. One of the doors was hanging off of its hinges, most of the windows were boarded up or shattered, and the yard in front of the building was choked with weeds. Every few moments he hit another key, showing the elementary school and the shadowed man Raz saw in Cruller's nightmares. In one picture, the man had turned directly towards the camera and--with the top half of his face in shadow--gave a sardonic grin.

"Because," The man continued his voice dry. "He's aware of our presence."

"Well, that scraps any covert ops you guys had in mind." Oleander shook his head.

"Not necessarily." Agent DeLucion pressed a few other buttons, bringing up a map of the area surrounding the elementary school--which was helpfully labeled 'school' in the center of the map. Landmarks were shown and highlighted, the ground's elevation was measured, and even the temperature and dew point were listed in the corner of the screen. "He's set himself up. The school he's holed himself up in was a boarding school--Pinecroft Academy. One of those places where the elite send their children, away from the 'untouchables', so they can grow up to be pompous assholes like their parents."

Sasha quirked a brow at the man's words. He didn't seem to be holding back any prejudices. Nor did he seem to be as rigid; he was still stooped forward, but his shoulders were not tensed as they were before.

Raz tilted his head a little. "What happened to the school?"

A wry grin formed across the man's features, as if the fact that the school closed gave him some sort of pleasure. "Extortion. The dean was stealing money from the school. Once he siphoned enough off of the rich kids and their parents, he skipped town. Latest report says he's on a private island somewhere, living the life of a billionaire. The school's been closed down ever since. The city couldn't afford to tear it down, so they just left it out on the outskirts of the town. It's been rotting out there in the woods ever since."

He adjusted the screen to focus on the roads that led to the academy. "Believe it or not, that works in our favor. He's isolated himself, holed up in a place he's unfamiliar with. His forces are small and somewhat disorganized from what we've seen. The rest of my squad is currently gathering more information. When they return, we'll have more information--enough to form a plan. We should have enough manpower to handle anything he throws at us. Maybe." Finished with his report, the young agent looked to Larry before slinking off back to his own console.

"Well, that's the whole of it, friends. I'm sure you're all aware that becoming involved in this will mark you as rogue agents, and possibly kidnappers in our own right due to Ms. Zanotto's presence. " Larry looked around at the others. He had taken a seat near DeLucion, noting their reactions to the information given to them in silence. "Of course, it's up to you if you want to participate, but your presence will definitely increase our odds of a successful mission."

"Well, of course we're going to do this." Ford was still standing. It simply took too long for him to sit down and get back up again. If it was one of his floating chairs, he would've been all over that. If he tried to sit down, he probably would have fallen asleep through the report anyway. "Sort of goes without sayin', you know?"

The others all nodded their agreement, murmuring amongst themselves. Larry smiled. "Excellent! Until then, you're welcome to all of the facilities here. We'll have an area set up for you, Agent Cruller. Agent DeLucion will show the rest of you to your rooms."

* * *

Agent DeLucion proved to be more taciturn and withdrawn than Sasha. He went through the motions of showing each of them their rooms in a mechanical fashion. Staying silent throughout most of it unless he was asked any questions. And with Raz around, there were plenty of questions aimed towards him.

They were currently walking down a hallway towards a set of doors that led to the guest rooms. Everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts for the most part. Except for Raz, of course.

"Hey, Agent DeLucion?"

A sigh. "Yes?"

"Why do you carry that big knife around?" He pointed at the large blade.

The Agent answered with a question of his own. "Why do you wear those goggles?"

"They make me look cool. And Sasha won't let me borrow his sunglasses."

"And they become a part of your astral projection, do they not? Anything you carry on your person tends to 'follow' you into the mental world. Sometimes a situation calls for a weapon other than those equipped within your mind." He hoped that would satisfy the child's curiosity enough that he would be able to show them to their rooms in silence.

No such luck. "Oh. How'd you get that scar?"

The man's back stiffened slightly. "I was on assignment in Australia. One of our contacts there got careless. Most of my squadmates carry scars from that encounter as well."

Raz was silent for a few moments, and then spoke again. The best way to learn was to ask questions, after all. "Hey, why is this place called the Shaded Glen?"

"Back when the city was first founded, Traces of psitanium were found everywhere around here. Trees, ground, even in the water. The animals were affected. Some of them went mad, and started attacking the villagers. The more vicious attacks occurred here--or above us, actually. Folktales started, cautionary tales that said to keep away from the shaded glen and its inhabitants."

"In other words, a perfect place to set up an outpost for the Psychonauts." Sasha spoke quietly. "A psychoactive resource, tales to keep the curious away, and a remote location."

Agent DeLucion nodded, falling back into his comfortable--and preferred--silence. It didn't last very long.

"Um. Are those guys part of your squad?" He pointed down the hall, where two agents, each young men, and each of them waving frantically waving at the young agent. One of the two, a short blond boy with the jacket open on his uniform to reveal a heavy metal band t-shirt beneath, sprinted towards DeLucion.

DeLucion gave another, longsuffering sigh. "Yes. That would be our intel group."

"Hey, Screak! We got it! That asshole's goin' down!"

* * *

After the others left the room, Ford watched Larry closely. "Alright, drop the act. You're entirely too cheery right now—which means you're hidin' something."

The other man sighed, seemingly shrinking into his chair. "Agent Nein's reports. Are they true?"

Ford tilted his head, eyeing the man closely. "Of course they are. Sasha wouldn't say something unless he's researched it to death first. Even then he'd research his research to make sure his sources are good. He's anal about things like that."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Larry muttered, massaging his temples. He seemed to have aged ten years. He glanced over to the other man who had been present in the room during the debriefing. "Sam, could you leave us alone for a moment?"

The agent stood from his post, gave a shy smile to Larry, and left the room. Once the door was firmly shut, Larry looked back to Cruller. "In his notes, Agent Nein said it was possible for people to be manipulated by this Spiral. That they get trapped inside their nightmares for days at a time and when they finally awaken, they're terrified. Claim they keep being trapped inside some shadowed labyrinth."

Ford nodded. "Yes. There've been reports about this sorta thing happening throughout Psychonauts history. Lost a few agents to it, too. Damn near lost Sasha to it a few years back."

"Agent Nein's partner…" A thoughtful pause. "He's never told Vodello, has he?"

Ford shrugged. He preferred not to speak behind his agents' backs, and as far as he was concerned, that was Sasha's story to share. They were good people, and some of the best friends an old multiple personality disorder victim could have. Not that many people would put up with someone's delusions like that for as long as they have. "Get to the point, Larry."

"What happened to him, I think it's happening here. On a larger scale."

"You think some of your agents are having nightmares like that?" That would definitely complicate their plans, and possibly put them into extreme danger. Sasha had once suffered through a nightmare intense enough to blast a wall down on top of Oleander.

"Some of them, yes. Mostly I think it's affecting the town. People…they've gotten mean, Cruller. Violent crime is up; reports of insomnia are running rampant, suicides have _doubled, _and half of the town has checked into the local asylum. It's not the psitanium—there simply isn't enough of it here to cause that kind of behavior." He sighed. "It's gotten so bad that we can't send our empaths out anymore. They refuse to even set foot into crowded places. And it started getting worse when we tracked down Shadow Man."

Ford was silent for several long moments. "You think the town is going insane?"

"I think our Shadow friend is responsible for it."

Cruller's mind was running a mile a minute, and his thoughts focused on Raz and Lili. If the Shadow Man ever found a way to enter their minds, things could turn ugly very fast. Lili had been complaining of nightmares since before Oleander's bid to take over the world. Raz had the same nightmare as Lili. And Oleander…well, his nightmares had driven him to acts that he would likely never forgive himself for.

Larry leaned forward, looking at Ford. "This man is the most dangerous criminal in the history of the Psychonauts, Ford. He's probably been planning this for years. And now we're all that's standing between him and the rest of the world. Those are not good odds."

The former Grand Head thought on this for a long while, his eyes focused on the light blue screen that still had a map of Pinecroft Academy on it. He thought of a young boy, with a set of goggles strapped across his head, who single handedly rescued the brains of his classmates and teachers, and finished a scavenger hunt on top of all of that. He smiled. "Nothin' we can't handle. Now, what're the burgers like around here?"


	5. Cheap Shot

**A/N: **The end of this chapter marks the beginning of True Psychonauts Excellence (I hope.) With a bit of darkness thrown in for good measure, of course. And please don't kill me for the chapter ending, 'kay?

(Mad props to Tyraa Rane for putting up with my insanity while I wrote this! XD)

* * *

**Chapter Five: Cheap Shot**

Five Psychonauts were gathered together beneath the town of Cedar, Kansas, standing in the central control room. They were standing around a lit table, where a map of Pinecroft Academy lay before them.

Sasha's voice broke the heavy silence. "Very well. Two teams of four. Myself, Agents Vodello and DeLucion, and Razputin."

DeLucion frowned, narrowing his eyes at Sasha. "Whoa, wait a minute. Why the hell are we bringing a _kid _with us? I don't mind working with you two, but this isn't a training exercise."

Ford chuckled. "He's had plenty of training, and his expertise is in recovering hostages…Much like yours is getting exiled from one of the most powerful nations in the world and burning people alive. Just trust our judgment." He shot a knowing look to the young man. Sasha, for the life of him, could not understand why Ford was antagonizing the boy. He noticed this type of behavior in his old friend while the agent was giving his report. Was he trying to prove some sort of point?

The young agent's back stiffened. When he spoke, his voice was tight with anger, though it still held a note of respect. "Sir."

Larry, if he was bothered by Ford's needling of his agent, hid it well. "That sounds reasonable, Nein. Agents Meads, Zander, Neverhome, and Rage will make up the other team. However, I do have one question…" He watched the German man closely. "Why don't you bring Oleander with you? As Agent DeLucion said, Razputin is still child, gifted though he may be."

The Whispering Rock Psychonauts looked among each other for a few moments. Milla spoke, her voice quiet. "Morceau requested to serve as backup in case both of our teams fail. He said it didn't make much sense sending in everyone at once."

Larry tilted his head to the side slightly, but nodded. They weren't telling him the whole truth. "Of course… What of Miss Zanotto?"

"She stays here with Oleander and Iceclaw." Sasha thought for a moment and then dryly added, "Her anger alone at having both her boyfriend and father kidnapped would be sufficient to rescue us. If not turn the entire tri-state area into a blasted wasteland." Most of the others seemed to agree to that statement.

Another long silence, broken by Ford. "Just so you're all aware, I'm not the one that's gonna tell her she can't go."

Ten minutes and three games of Rock, Paper, Scissors later, Sasha gave a defeated sigh and went to go find Lili. Milla found him half an hour later inside his room, smoking two cigarettes at once and muttering darkly in German as he repaired a singed jacket.

* * *

_Finally! An official mission! Well, if you ignore the fact that we're basically committing treason at worst and insubordination at best…_Raz was almost beside himself in his excitement for his first almost-official mission for the Psychonauts—one where he was supposed to help rescue the Grand Head, no less! Assuming nothing went horribly wrong, they'd be heroes! Maybe even get mentioned in the next issue of True Psychic Tales. 

Such thoughts followed the young boy as he, Sasha, and Milla followed Agent DeLucion up above ground to an uneven, cracked parking lot. The sun had gone down only a few moments before to be replaced by the dark night sky, and the sound of cawing crows echoed across the parking lot. DeLucion stopped next to one of the cars and shuffled through his pockets, pulling out a set of keys and approaching one of the cars.

"..._This _is your car?" Raz stared at the...well, there was no other way to describe it--abomination of mechanics and modern transportation that sat before them. It was old, that was for sure. A rusted Buick from the 50's sat across three parking spaces in the Shaded Glen's parking lot, it's formerly white paint chipping off, with rust marring the small amount of paint that wasn't buried beneath dirt, grime, and bird droppings. It was missing three hubcaps, and the remaining one seemed ready to pop off at any moment. There were dents and scratches covering the whole of it.

"Yep! Screak's grandpa built that car. Amazing how it still works, eh mate?" A cheery agent, tanned with spiked blonde hair smirked at Agent DeLucion—or Screak as the other agents called him--before pulling himself into the driver's seat of a bright orange Jeep. Raz had never seen him before, though he guessed from the man's accent that he was from Australia. There was another agent alongside him, the one with the heavy metal band shirt under his jacket. He snickered and jumped into the passenger's seat.

Screak ignored the other agents, focusing instead on wrenching open his own door. After a full five minutes worth of struggle, Sasha sighed, walked over to the younger agent, unlocked the door via telekinesis and then opened it for him. He then very calmly went and sat in one of the back seats. Milla, looking amused, joined him.

Raz grinned at Screak.

"Just get in the damn car."

Raz jumped into the passenger seat. DeLucion moved into the driver's seat, started the car, and began the long drive to Pinecroft Academy.

* * *

The silence in the car lasted for three miles. 

"So, what's the plan? Levitate in, turn invisible, and subdue the guards? Incite a revolt among the local rodent population? Dogen said squirrels were good for those kinds of things. Ooh! How about we--"

"Dear god, someone please make it stop." Agent DeLucion--or Screak, as the other agents called him--had his arms crossed above his head in a defensive position, leaning against the steering wheel of his car. Raz had been asking questions almost nonstop since they left the Shaded Glen.

Sasha finally spoke up from the backseat. "Calm yourself, Razputin. We have a plan, and you will need that energy in order for it to work."

Raz turned around in his seat, and Sasha was struck with just how young the Psychonaut truly was. With his goggles strapped across his head—sans helmet, that thing was just tacky—his messy brown hair sticking out in all directions, and the unbridled excitement in his eye gave him the look of a child going on his first family vacation. You never would have guessed that he was a government agent embarking on one of the most important missions in Psychonauts history. Raz gave him a toothy grin before turning back around. "Got it, Agent Nein!"

Sometime later, Screak pulled the car off to the side of the road, bringing it a stop and killing the lights and engine. He counted a full ten seconds before Raz's questions began.

"So…what're we doing?" Raz was looking out of the window at the trees that seemed to have intertwined their branches with one another to form a sort of leafy tunnel over the two lane road. The occasional hoot from an owl or croaking of a frog could be heard over the constant chirping of the crickets.

"Waiting."

"For what?"

"A distraction."

"…What kind—"

"_SPICEGIRLS ROCK! YEAH!"_ A bright orange Jeep, not unlike the one they had seen back in the parking lot, shot past them. It was full of a group of agents Raz had seen but not been introduced to back in the Shaded Glen, only they weren't wearing their uniforms. In fact, if Raz hadn't known any better, he would have suspected them to be nothing more than a rowdy bunch of college kids. Then again, they seemed to be like that even with their uniforms on.

"_Tha_t kind of distraction." Screak started the car. "This is your show, Nein, Vodello. Me and the kid will be back-up for you two. I've got a radio to Nick and the others, so just give me the orders and I'll pass 'em along, alright? Assuming they aren't suicidal or stupid, we'll listen."

Sasha quirked a brow. "Very well...When will we know if your team has taken care of the guards—"

"_Hey, asshole! This is Skin-n-Bones! Guards are gone. You can come up now."_

"Answers that question, then." Sasha said, growing less certain of the Shaded Glen agents by the moment.

Screak pulled the car back onto the road and sped down a short distance to the open, rusted gates of Pinecroft Academy. It looked the same as it did in the picture, save that there was now a long streak of tire marks that ended beneath the ungodly bright orange Jeep. The Jeep was empty, though the engine was running and the headlights were on. Screak did a better job of hiding his vehicle—parking it off the side of the road once more, just past the gates, hidden in the shadow of a crumbling brick wall. It was eerily silent.

Sasha was the first one out of the car and, after adjusting his sunglasses (Raz could never figure out how he saw at night with those things on), turned invisible.

Milla followed suit, sending a tendril of thought towards Raz. _Follow our lead, darling. We don't have to worry about our psychic signatures being picked up, thanks to Agent DeLucion's team._

Raz blinked, moving out of the car and turning invisible. Surprisingly, he could still see Sasha and Milla—or their auras, actually. He had once read that psychics were capable of hiding their auras from certain people, yet allow others to see them plain as day. It was one way the Psychonauts were able to bring down particularly stubborn foes; one agent would stay visible and distract the target while the other agent turned invisible and psi-blasted or restrained the unsuspecting opponent. Sasha's aura was a cool mix between green and blue, steady and constant, whereas Milla's was a vibrant combination of pink and purple, swirling around and shifting to the beat of unheard song. Screak's was red, and throbbed in time with his heartbeat, brimming with anger.

Raz couldn't help but notice that both Sasha and Screak's auras were not…well, pure. Sasha's was pale around the edges, with tendrils of darkness threading in towards the center. As he watched, the tendrils wormed closer towards the center of Sasha's aura, but were suddenly shot back, where they slowly began to repeat the process. Screak's was the same, although the darkness in his aura was a swirling mass instead of stationary veins. He made a note to ask Sasha or Milla about that later; right now they had other things to worry about.

Sasha's voice entered his mind, his aura arcing upward to lightly touch the top of his head. There was a similar 'link' between Milla and Sasha, though it was thicker, and their auras actually melded together in one section. The tendrils of darkness that were present in Sasha's aura didn't reach that particular section of his aura. _We do not have much time. Razputin, you and Agent DeLucion will act as rearguard for us. If we end up getting separated, don't panic. If you cannot reach us, then do your best to escape without the enemy seeing you. Stick to the shadows._

Raz nodded, then remembered he was invisible, and thought back to Sasha. It was sort of weird at first; kind of like threading a needle through a complex web. _Got it!_

The four of them passed through the rotting wooden door, to find themselves inside a hallway covered in dust and debris, with the occasional fluorescent bulb flickering on and off along the ceiling, broken glass along the floor reflecting the uncertain light. Children's drawings covered the walls, the paper yellowed with age and exposure to the elements, most torn, some burned. A few of the walls sported glass cases with sports trophies held within, or awards from the state for outstanding performance in some academic pursuit. The air was stuffy and smelled of rotting wood and paper. It was just as silent within the walls of the building as it had been outside. As far Raz could see, there was no one around.

Sasha took the lead, weaving through the hall with an almost eerie grace that Raz had witnessed back at Whispering Rock; he didn't so much as walk as _glide_ across the floor, stepping over fallen doors and shattered glass with equal ease. Milla followed close behind, mimicking his steps with her own style. Raz made sure to keep pace with them both, and he could actually _feel _Screak's aura behind him. It was like the heat of a fierce fire, and the closer he was, the more intense the heat. For some reason, Raz didn't feel completely comfortable with the strange Psychonaut covering his back. It just didn't sit well with him.

They weaved through the halls dilapidated halls of the abandoned school together in silence. Sasha apparently knew where they needed to go, since he moved with little, if any, hesitation. He led them away from the main halls and towards the back of the building, stopping them all in a T shaped hallway some short distance away from a heavy steel door with the words BOILER ROOM printed across in bold letters. Raz noticed a strange, luminescent picture of a fox above it, barely noticeable at first. A psi-marker, only different from the ones he was used to seeing back at Whispering Rock. Milla moved to the side of the door, and readied a confusion grenade, its sickly green color clashing with the vibrant purple of her aura. Sasha stood away from the door and pressed two fingers to his temple, his voice entering the others' minds. _According to the most recent reports, Truman is being held beyond here in the basement. Unfortunately, we do not have an exact location. Razputin, you're going in ahead of us to find the best route and, hopefully, find Truman. DeLucion, form up on me; Raz cover Milla while we secure the room beyond. _

For what was essentially the Shadow Man's base of operations, Raz noticed that there wasn't all that much in the way of security. He suspected that could have been because of Screak's team, but shouldn't there have been more of a resistance? They just literally walked through the front door! _Sasha, what if this is a trap?_

_Then we handle the situation accordingly._

_That is so not helpful. _Raz thought back sullenly. Sometimes Sasha gave you good answers; other times, you had to beat it out of him. Luckily, Sasha had a partner who was actually capable of communicating on a level most people could understand—Milla spoke to the young Psychonaut.

_That is what the grenade is for, darling. Make sure no one sneaks up behind us, okay? Sasha gets fussy if a plan doesn't work out._

Now that was much easier to understand! The young Psychonaut had a feeling that Milla had been paired with Sasha for the sole purpose of translating Sasha-speak into layman's terms. That, or Ford had a really sick sense of humor and wanted to see what would happen if you put opposites together. Raz decided that it was a mix of the two. Ford was just twisted enough to do that.

The door popped open easily enough. _There. Razputin, go. If something goes wrong, do your best to get out of there. If all else fails, scream. Good luck._

And with those words of encouragement ringing in his ears, Raz jumped ahead of the group and into the darkness beyond.

* * *

Back in the Shaded Glen headquarters, Lili was pacing back and forth impatiently. It truly hadn't been very long since everyone left for Pinecroft Academy, but it certainly felt like hours. It didn't help that she was stuck with the most annoying people on this planet. The girl turned to shoot a glare at the others currently gathered in the room. Larry was leaning back in his chair, frowning at one of the main screens thoughtfully, and twirling a pen around his fingers. Some nameless agent sat in the corner, muttering to himself and drinking from something that she suspected was a hip flask. Another agent sat next to him in silence, brooding, and occasionally looking over to glare at Oleander and Iceclaw who had begun a game of Waterloo nearby. Ford was watching Oleander's game closely. 

"Aha!" Oleander slammed a small wooden soldier into a space on the game board, causing all of the other pieces to pop up and fall over. He gave a wicked grin to the much taller man across from him. "Try and get out of _that _one!"

Iceclaw stared at the board in thought for a good five minutes. Which eventually grew to ten minutes. Then fifteen…

For some reason, this annoyed Lili even more. She stomped over to the two, grabbed one of Iceclaw's pieces, and then proceeded to utterly destroy Oleander's army, piece by piece, until his stronghold was left defenseless, where she dropped the piece directly in the center of it. The piece was a simple peasant child. Satisfied, Lili went back to pacing.

The two Psychonauts stared at the board. Then at her. Back at the board again.

"I…what the hell just happened?" Oleander stared at the board in confusion. "That strategy was _flawless! _And she destroyed it with a _kid?_" He had the vague feeling that he should find that ironic in some way.

Iceclaw just grinned. "Best two out of three?"

"You're on!"

The two began to reset the pieces—each one in the exact position as they had _before_, Lili noticed with disgust—but were interrupted when the door flew open. A young man charged inside and sharply saluted Larry, who was staring in confusion at him. "Sir! You have—"

It was at that exact moment that another agent walked inside. He was short man, the same size as Oleander, though he didn't seem to be bitter about it. He also looked damn good in his uniform. "Hey, Shadow Man just sent us a message." _That_ was enough to gather everyone's attention. Larry quirked a brow at the second agent. "Here, let me show you."

The second agent walked over to one of the consoles and switched the screens on the main walls to images of the dorm area that DeLucion had shown Lili and the others only a short while ago. The halls were empty, and the doors were bare, just as Lili remembered them. She could see her own guest room door, next to Raz's and Milla's.

Larry stared at the screen. "What, exactly, are we looking for?"

"This is what the hall looked like five minutes ago. _This,_" he pressed another button, bringing up another image. "Is what it looks like now."

As they watched, a bright flash of light obscured the screens for a brief moment, sending all of them into a mess of rolling images and static. Once the images stabilized, the reason why the second agent had come in was made abundantly clear.

Outside of the door of every Psychonaut that had left for Pinecroft, there sat an arrangement of flowers and a small card. As they watched, more appeared, each time the screen going fuzzy and then focusing back on the doors until there were roughly three outside of every door. Once the third flower arrangement appeared outside of the last door, the agent zoomed the camera in on every card. All of them said one thing: _Sorry for your loss._


	6. A Good Boy

**A/N:** Holy crap this took forever. I mean, really, it took forever. PS, don't kill me when you reach the end.

* * *

**Chapter Six: A Good Boy **

Buried deep within the confines of the Psychonauts Headquarters, in an uncharted corridor where the janitors rarely dared to tread, there was an office that belonged to one Senior Agent Murphy, a man whose renown was equal to that of Sasha Nein, and maybe even Ford Cruller. He was a thin man, wiry, with red hair, pale skin, freckles, and the worst luck in the world. In the past month he had managed to destroy no less than two cars, break a door, cause his vacuum to inexplicably break in half, and have a red pen leak all over his favorite shirt during an important meeting. Despite all of this, he was a cheerful man, always looking on the bright side.

In his current situation, however, he was finding himself struggling to find the good through the bad. His luck had once again made his life complicated and miserable--Kyle Andrews had assigned him the task of tracking down one Truman Zanotto and his errant bodyguards and to do so as quietly as possible. The latter half of the assignment he understood; Murphy was by no means an expert on politics, but he knew the media would have a field day if they found out Zanotto was missing--and god forbid they find out _he _was the one in charge of finding him. He shuddered even thinking about it. Murphy was infamous for his bad luck; one of the two cars he had recently destroyed had been Truman's. It certainly didn't help that most of his fellow agents considered him to be nothing but a nuisance at best and a hazard to everyone's well being at worst. Everyone he's gone to for aid in his assignment turned him down, saying that they had more pressing matters to attend to. What was more important than finding their kidnapped leader was beyond him.

That didn't mean he wasn't willing to at least try to get their cooperation. One of the latest additions to the rumor mill had an interesting bit of information about the Shaded Glen branch... Shuffling through the papers on his cluttered desk, he searched for the number to the secure line he knew he would need to reach the Shaded Glen, managing to spill his cup of coffee in the process. A band-aid, some burn cream, and a string of curses later, he succeeded.

* * *

_You know, _Razputin thought to himself, _it would be so much easier finding this guy if I had the slightest idea of where I needed to go..._

The young Psychonaut was currently hanging upside down along some pipes that threaded through the decidedly more forbidding hallways beyond the boiler room. His invisibility had worn off awhile ago, and he had taken to hiding along the shadowed ceiling until he had enough energy to use his power again. The walls were made of some sort of cheap cement that was lined with cracks from the pressure of the building above it and the shifting earth surrounding it. There were a few flickering fluorescent bulbs that illuminated the hallways. For the past several minutes he had crawled through the dank hallways, battling rats the size of small dogs as well as a few spiders that he wasn't ashamed to say made him mentally shriek like a little girl (spiders were just _nasty)._ And he had found nothing of any interest whatsoever. Absolutely nothing. Just dank halls, poor lighting, and possibly a few spider bites for his trouble.

With a small sigh, Raz flipped himself down to the ground and turnedto face back the way he had come. He was about to head back to Sasha and the others and just write off the entire network of hallways as clear when a high, raspy voice echoed down the hall behind him.

"Vasili!" The tone was that of a teacher scolding a mischevious student. "Skipping class again, hm? Well, not on my watch, young man!"

_Oh, crap._ Raz thought as he twisted around to look at the source of the voice. It took a moment for Raz to distinguish thefigure from the darkness in the hallway. The woman was hunched over, wearing a pair of dirt stained slacks, a ragged violet shirt, and a pair of tattered brown shoes. Greasy locks of black hair trailed down froma mostly bald head to hang in front of her face, her wide bloodshot eyes focusing on Raz.

"No, you aren't getting away _this time_!" The woman shook her head, stalking towards the young boy with an eerie sort of grace. She moved in a way that was just wrong. Her movements were jerky, sudden, as if her body was made of some wooden material rather than flesh and bone. "Not until you turn in that homework!'

_Okay, gotta think fast..._ He'd reflect on the fact that he was being accosted by a psychotic ex-teacher in the middle of an abandoned school in Kansas and find it somewhat amusing later. Right now, he was just creeped out. But he knew that it was in his best interest to play along with whatever delusion the woman was under. People took offense if you didn't follow their own particular version of reality. "I, uh, forgot it Mrs...?"

"Bittersbaum! Honestly, child, you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached to your body." The woman put on a sudden burst of speed, halving the distance between them. In the flickering light, her appearance was even more grotesque. Raz made a small noise in the back of his throat.

"Uh, yeah..." _Oh my god, this woman is ugly. _Raz slowly backed away from the approaching teacher. "Sorry, Mrs. Bittersbaum. I forgot my homework in...my locker."

"Then go get it!" She snapped, bits of spittle flying from her lips. She motioned angrily down the hall behind her, taking her eyes off of the Psychonaut for a brief moment. "And make it snappy, boy! I haven't got all day!"

Raz was already halfway down the hall and around a corner before the woman turned around. He was hidden in the shadows, with his invisibility on to boot as he moved along the cracked walls and thought over his current situation. He couldn't help but feel that he had narrowly escaped a horrible fate... Or that the woman was supposed to have kept him from going this way. His invisibility began to fade away again--he only had so much regenerate when that crazy lady started yelling at him. Leaning against the cool wall, he sighed.

He didn't notice the shadows above him shift ever so slightly. Nor did he notice the darkness swirl and form into a clawed hand directly above his head. He did, however, notice it when the hand flashed down, wrapped itself around his head, covering his eyes, and snatched him upwards.

Raz's cry of surprise fell on the ears of tiny rodents and a woman too far gone to help.

* * *

Twisting, writhing, doing his best not to panic, Raz struggled with all of his might to get free. He shifted through every psychic ability he could think of-- he tried to erect a shield, but the grip was too tight; he tried setting it on fire, but thought better of it when his hair started smoking. Levitation was useless, and telekinesis did you no good if you were blind. Throughout his struggles, the young Psychonaut could hear oddly familiar voices... 

"Eh? What've you got there, mate?"

"Uh, I don't know actually." The second voice was low, strained, as though he was struggling against a powerful force. That wasn't a bad description. "Too small to be one of the bad guys..."

Raz felt something along the edge of his mind, a twinge of pain, like something was trying to get in. He felt the exact same thing only a short time ago, when he had snuck into Whispering Rock and Oleander had tried to enter his mind. Something instinctive took over, shielded him, protected him. He hearda third voice grunt in frustration.

"Man, those are some serious shields! I can't get in. Hey, kid, what's your name?"

Raz struggled some more against the darkness that covered his eyes. "Let me go! I can't see anything!"

"Hey, that sounds like--Neverhome, let 'im go. I think we just snatched up one of our own."

The darkness lifted, and Raz found himself laying on his back in one of the many dank hallways that made up most of Pinecroft Academy's basement. Once his eyes readjusted to the dim lighting, he sat up, looking at the others. He recognized them as the agents who were in the Jeep earlier. The spiky haired agent he remembered back in the parking lot was crouched before him, his pale blue eyes watching Raz intently.

"Hey, mate, sorry about that. You're the kid with Nein and Vodello, right?" He grinned then, a look that made the agent look no older than his early teens, though Raz suspected he was in his early twenties. "Heh, ya even look like Nein, sorta. Guess that makes ya agent Nein-Point-Five."

This earned a groan from one of the other agents. A dark skinned man with his hair in dreadlocks, wearing a dark brown trenchcoat over faded jeans. He scowled. "We have a mission to perform, Meads."

"Right, right. Sheesh, don't get yer panties all up in a knot, mate. There's always time to be polite." He rolled his eyes before shoving a gloved hand at Raz. "Name's Nick Meads, kid. Never caught yer name earlier."

Raz blinked at him before taking the offered hand and pulling himself up. "I'm Raz. What're you guys doing down here?"

"Well, we were sent in ahead of you guys to take care of any guards. The thing is, there weren't any. Well, not unless ya count that crazy lady back down the hall. This is our second time through the building; we're just making sure nothing got past us." Nick stood up as well, stretching a little before nodding to the three other agents surrounding them. "Alrighty mates, let's get goin'."

"Whoa, wait!" Raz ran after the four other agents."Where are you going?"

"Well, like I said, we've been through most of the basement already. But Neverhome keeps picking somethin' up with that...uh, gift, of his." Nick said this as he called his squad together and had them form up with Raz in the center.

"I'm telling you, someone is screaming in there." Neverhome said. He had tanned skin and was a little taller than Nick, and wore simple clothing. A loose, black t-shirt and dark jeans made up the core of his outfit. Dark brown hair was kept at the level of his ears, a few stubborn strands hanging across his forehead. He had sad eyes.

Raz followed Nick and Neverhome while the other two agents followed behind him. He noticed that they seemed very confident for being in enemy territory. They were treating this as if it were a walk in the park; there was no sign of the professional detachment he saw in Sasha or the cautious grace of Milla. These were just junior agents casually going about a mission. One that just happened to involve the rescue of the Grand Head.

He looked at Neverhome curiously. "I don't hear any screams..."

"No, I didn't think you would. The power I have is rare, even for psychics." They turned a corner and began to edge down another of the dank hallways. A rat scurried across the floor, squeaking angrily. Raz had a flashback to Thorney Towers and had to keep from psi-blasting the rodent on sight. "They call it Ghost-Sight. And you, Razputin Aquato, have a fairly loud group of ghosts following you." He looked further down the hall and nodded towards a door at the end of the hallway. "It's in there."

Nick broke open the door, no preparation whatsoever. He just psi-blasted it open and walked inside. A few moments later, his voice was heard. "Okay, so I owe you five dollars, Neverhome. Get in here, mates. I think we just hit the jackpot."

Neverhome walked inside with Raz a few short steps behind. He came to a screeching halt when he saw what was inside, however. "Uhh..."

The room had been a small office of some sort back when the school was up and running. A rickety wooden desk sat in the middle of the bland room lit by a swinging flourescent bulb that cast eerie shadows across the abandoned furniture. Rotting wallpaper peeled away from the walls, some of it curling all the way down to touch the cold floor. Now, however, it served a very different purpose. Inside of the room, bound and unconscious, was middle-aged man in a decorated Psychonauts uniform slumped against the wall. He was not alone in this room. On the opposite side, there was a little boy in ragged clothes, strapped to a chair. He was restrained by a straightjacket around his torso and heavy chains that threaded over his small form and around the metal chair he was placed in. The boy's greasy blonde hair hung in awkward clumps around his ears. His hazel eyes were focused on the doorway, a sickening grin spread across his youthful features.

Raz made a move to step further inside, but stopped when Nick grabbed his shoulder. "Easy, mate."

"But, that's Truman!" Raz said, frowning at the Australian agent.

One of the other agents spoke up from the hallway. Raz recognized the guy's heavy metal band t-shirt. Metal Head spoke, "Yeah, and this was too fuckin'easy. No guards? Nothing to hold us up but some crazy old lady? Now we find what we're lookin' for and a little kid chained to a chair. This is a trap, man."

Nick nodded. "Yeah, I think we better back out and call--"

The door slammed closed behind them, bent outward towards the hallway, and sealed itself shut. As Nick struggled with the door, they could hear Metal Head's voice. "I so totally called that!"

Raz looked around the room, then edged his way over to the man slumped in the corner. Or he tried to anyway. He found himself hanging upside in mid-air, slowly being dragged towards the boy chained to the chair. "Uhh, guys?"

The child giggled happily. "Daddy says I've been a good boy..."

* * *

Back in the hallway outside of the boiler room, Sasha, Milla, and Screak waited in silence, hidden in plain view. It was not a very comfortable silence—there was rarely any comfort involved at all when it came to a mission. Even Sasha was prone to the occasional nervous fidget, tracing the seam along his dark gloves with his thumb. By that same token, it was a bit tenser than it should have been. Perhaps it was because they just sent a ten-year-old boy alone into enemy territory without any knowledge of what lies ahead, or the nature of the mission they were on. Or perhaps it was because Screak kept watching Sasha and Milla with thinly veiled suspicion and contempt. All three of their auras were connected, and Sasha could easily see the dark emotions that played across the agent's mind. That was one thing he generally disliked about revealing his aura—you could be read too easily by others. Thankfully, Milla had long ago learned to keep from asking too many prying questions.

Sasha looked at the younger agent, regarding him carefully. "Tell me, Agent DeLucion, is there a reason why you're so…disagreeable?"

Screak sneered at him. "Simple. I don't trust you. Hell, I don't even _like _you."

Well, that was very blunt. Sasha gave a dry reply. "Yes, I can tell. Why?"

Screak shook his head. "Because I think you're going to double-cross us. And your actions don't add up. Nein, you've never been one to disagree with an order, or do anything that'd put your job in danger. Hell, they praise you at the academy for it." He glared at him. "Yet here you are, disobeying direct orders from the second in command—idiot though he may be—and doing something that could very well put you in jail or get you fired. Aren't you afraid you'll lose your license? How about your equipment you need for all those weird experiments? What makes an obedient dog turn against its master anyway?"

"I beg your pardon?" Despite his control, Sasha couldn't help but feel annoyed at the boy's insinuations.

"I think Andrews sent you here to rescue Truman instead of us under the pretense that you're not working under orders. That idiot's just petty enough to do that to us." Another sneer. "Until I see proof otherwise, you're all here to get the glory from rescuing the Grand Head in Larry's own backyard—just to humiliate him."

Sasha could sense Milla's shock and disbelief, and he was sure Screak did as well. He was surprised himself. He had worked with people he hadn't liked before, but even in those situations there was some level of trust involved. They were all there for the same reason and, even if they didn't particularly like each other, they could at least trust each other to cover their backs. Sasha had a feeling that Screak would gladly leave them to their own devices if a situation turned ugly.

Milla sighed, shaking her head. "Darling, what happened to you to make you so distrustful of your fellow agents?"

Screak opened his mouth to reply, but paused. The emotions swirling through the Psychonaut's aura suddenly changed from fierce hostility to a cold dread. When he spoke, his voice had changed from the growling tone to a calmer, if cold, one. "Something happened. That kid's in trouble--and he's dragged some of my guys into it."

Milla's aura shifted colors, turning darker much in the same way Sasha knew his own aura was doing. His voice matched Screak's tone perfectly. "Lead the way."

* * *

"Alright, just stay calm, mate..."

"He's eating my goggles. I'm about as calm as I can possibly be." Raz's reply was surprisingly calm, though there was a glint of panic in his eye.

"Well, at least he hasn't bit into your head yet, eh?" Nick gave a slight grin, preparing a telekinetic handhold on Raz's arm as Neverhome stalked towards the boy. A strange energy crackled around the dark haired Psychonaut, and a strange skeletal, blue tinged hand formed out of a white mist around the boy.

"But...but I was a good boy..." The boy grew nervous at the sight of the ghostly hand, then agitated, pulling Raz against him, then throwing him aside to deal with this new threat. Raz smacked into the wall and slowly slid down, breathless and dazed. It took him a moment to realize that he was actually laying on top of Truman. "No! I'm not bad!"

Nick cursed and ran over towards Raz and Truman, erecting a shield across the three of them. He looked at Neverhome and nodded. Suddenly, the ghostly hand shot up and wrapped the child into a tight embrace, stretching across his mouth and winding around his head to cover the boy's eyes as well. The child screamed and struggled against his bonds, both physical and mental, psychically rattling the chains bolted to the floor until they strained under his power. The desk shifted along the ground, then lifted up and propelled itself towards Neverhome. The Psychonaut sidestepped the attack and the desk crashed into the wall, the wood splintering and shooting off in every direction. A few pieces buried themselves into Neverhome's cheek, though he didn't seem to notice. The air crackled, sparked even in some places. Parts of the splintered desk began to smoke, the smoke carried off and swirling around a vicious wind that tore sheets of the wallpaper free.

Over the furious roar of power, Raz was barely able to hear Nick shout to his squadmate. "Keep hold of him, mate! Don't let up!" Raz's vision was blurry, and his thoughts were jumbled together, but he heard Nick clear enough. "You, kid, see that window?"

There was, indeed, a small half-sized window up near the ceiling of the room. Dirt and grime covered it, but the dim light of the moon could still be seen beyond it. Raz guessed he could fit easily through there; the others could as well with a little difficulty. The young Psychonaut nodded, and Nick continued.

"Good. Blast it. Then jump through it--take Truman with you. I'll let the shield down in a few moments, so make it quick."

Raz shook his head, standing up on shaky legs and preparing to psi-blast the window. Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait, what about you?"

A wicked grin formed across Nick's features. "Don't worry 'bout us, mate. Now get going!"

The second Nick's shield went down, Raz was struck by the wind. Temporarily thrown off balance, he had to struggle to stay up on his own two feet. When he regained control of himself, he psi-blasted the window--sending pieces of glass flying outward. Now came the hard part... Raz jumped up, concentrating his thoughts into the form of a ball beneath him, and then using the ball to bounce up towards the broken window. Catching the edge of it, he pulled himself through, then turned around and telekinetically grabbed Truman--and grunted.

He shouted back down to Nick. "He's too heavy! I can't lift him up!"

"Aw, bloody hell--hang on, mate. I'm gonna toss him through." No sooner said than done, Raz's hold on Truman was broken and the unconscious Grand Head of the Psychonauts was unceremoniously tossed into the young Psychonaut. Raz fell backwards, then struggled out from underneath Truman, staggering to his feet and grabbing hold of Truman's arm, dragging him away from the broken window.

Once they were a safe distance away, Raz wearily dropped down next to Truman and shook him. "Agent Zanotto? Hey! Wake up! Uhh...what usually wakes up an unconscious father... Oh! Hey! I kissed your daughter!" Truman stirred, groaned weakly...and then promptly went still again. "Wow, that actually worked..."

A glowing, sickly green colored ball of light slowly rolled to a stop in front of Raz. It occurred to him that it was a confusion grenade half a second before it exploded, sending his already unsteady mind reeling. A green haze fell across his vision, and Raz saw the strangest things. A shadow formed in the center of his vision, in the shape of a man. A thought almost occurred to him, but the ground buckled beneath the young Psychonaut and he had to cling to it for fear of falling into the sky. The grass tickled his cheek, and the ants crawling across the ground sang a song to him about shadowed men and the number six. Then they laughed at him and skittered away, leaving the very confused boy to stare in wonder at the twisted world around him.


	7. Home Sweet Home

**Chapter Seven: Home Sweet Home**

It didn't take Sasha, Milla, and Screak long to move through the basement halls to the sealed room. It took all three of them to blast the door open and the scene they found before them was one that spoke of a fierce battle--one that had not lasted long apparently. The room was utterly destroyed--pieces of splintered wood were scattered all across the ground along with strips of rotting wallpaper and shards of glass. In the center of the room was a child, chained to both the floor and a chair, ranting wildly and screaming for his father; across the room were two Psychonauts, one laying across the ground and bleeding from a small wound across his cheek, the other clearly recovering from a reaction headache--the kind that psychics tend to get after using too many powers at once, or for too long a time.

There was one telling absence... Sasha spoke, looking back into the hallway. "Where's Razputin?"

Screak immediately moved to his teammates' sides, spoke in a dark tone with the Australian, then as an answer to Sasha's question, pointed towards the broken window. Sasha stepped back inside, looked through the window, then muttered darkly in German. He then commandeered Screak's team, running out of the room and back down the hallway, leaving Milla with Screak and his two teammates.

Milla walked towards the ranting child and cautiously knelt down beside him. The boy whimpered and struggled against his bonds, trying to edge away from her. Smiling warmly, she reached out towards the boy, laying a white gloved hand across his forehead as she spoke in soft, soothing tones. "You're tired, darling. Rest." Almost immediately, the boy fell silent, his eyelids drooping downward and then closing. Satisfied, she turned to see how Screak was fairing.

"Sam? Hey, Sammy! Wake up! Shit." He was shaking the unconscious agent, who only groaned in response. The Australian, blinking dazedly, moved over to the two. Screak looked over to Milla, then waved her over. "Agent Vodello, we're gonna need your help with him."

"Of course." She walked over to the three, but froze when she neared them. Sam's previously still form suddenly went into a fetal position. He covered his ears and trembled, whimpering pitifully. Screak uttered a sharp curse and gripped Sam's shoulder, a confused and frightened look on his face. Milla recovered quickly and knelt down next to the three other agents. Sam's condition grew worse; in fact, the closer Milla was, the worse it seemed to get.

Rather tentatively, Milla reached out a hand towards the prone agent. "Darling, what's--"

The second she touched his shoulder, Sam jerked away, curling up into an even tighter ball and started to emit a high-pitched keening noise. Milla drew her hand away, and the reaction, whatever it was, seemed to subside a little. The keening stopped and he took to muttering under his breath, quickly and softly and impossible to understand.

"What the hell?" Screak looked at Milla, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "Maybe you'd better just back off on this one, Agent Vodello."

"I...suppose." She was quick to stand up and retreat over to the door, where she stayed, staring at Sam.

Together, Screak and Nick grabbed Sam by his arms and hoisted him to his feet, supporting his weight between the two of them. Sam hung between the two of them, boneless. "C'mon, Sam," Screak muttered, grabbing his chin and giving it a good shake. "Waking up and not freaking out would be good. Sevrin'll kill me if you're hurt."

Nick moved around to look over Screak's shoulder, peeling back one of Sam's eyelids. "It's his gift, mate. He's not seein' us. Remember back at the hotel?" He jerked his head towards Milla, and she could sense the telepathic bond flash between them. Nick apparently had something to say that she wasn't supposed to hear. Whatever it was made Screak's eyes narrow, and he looked at her thoughtfully for a few brief moments before speaking.

"Agent Vodello, grab the kid and go ahead of us...We'll follow you."

Milla frowned, stepped inside to better grab a hold of the boy, but moved back to the doorway when Sam whimpered and drew away from her. Screak and Nick moved Sam all the way to the opposite end of the room, both of the other agents now watching her very closely as she reached out with telekinesis and lifted the sleeping boy from the ground. She could feel their stares along her back the entire way out of the academy; she had to keep herself from shivering.

* * *

Back at Psychonauts headquarters, Agent Murphy was speaking with the acting Grand Head. Andrews had moved into Truman's office (something that concerned and irked more than a few agents), and was currently found sitting very comfortably behind Truman's desk, looking over reports. He was a small man, middle aged and just beginning to lose his hair. He glanced up at Murphy as he entered, and sighed. "If you're here to give a progress report, just leave it on the desk. I'll get to it eventually."

Murphy was used to the type of greetings Andrews gave, and like most of his fellow agents, ignored what he said completely. He handed him a report and spoke excitedly, "Good news, sir! A group of agents has found Truman! Agent Williams says he's unconscious but there's no sign of physical abuse, and they're still running tests to check his mental health. We can have them bring him back here--"

Andrews cut him off, never looking up from the report he held in his hand. He'd always been a fast reader, and memorized each of the names detailed in Murphy's report. "No, we can't. What they did was ignore direct orders so that they couldd act on a reckless whim. What they did, Murphy, was kidnap Truman Zanotto. These people aren't our agents anymore. They are as dangerous as any psychic terrorist group. Worse, in fact, since they've stolen Psychonauts property to use in their own ends." He spared a bored glance at the man in front of him. "I want you to hunt them down and take care of this problem. Quietly. Is that clear?"

Murphy blinked, shock and disbelief playing across his features. "But, sir..."

"You have your orders, Murphy. I would hope that this task isn't beyond your skill." Andrews drawled, resting his elbow on the desk and idly scratching his chin. Murphy stiffened at his remark and prepared to argue with the man. There was no need for this! They found Truman! The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. But he stayed silent. Ranting at Andrews about this would accomplish nothing; he wouldn't listen to anything Murphy said, and he'd likely demote the poor guy for raising his tone at him.

Murphy silently and reluctantly saluted Andrews before leaving the room. Three minutes later he called the Shaded Glen outpost. Five minutes after that, a small squad of elite agents broke into the Shaded Glen to find it completely empty.

* * *

Someone kept talking to him, trying to pull him from his dreams, make him wake up. Raz groaned and rolled over, away from the voice, curling around the warmth nearby. A warm hand pressed against his cheek, and he snuggled against it. That soft voice continued, speaking in warm tones.

"Raz, darling, you have to wake up..." Raz muttered incoherently as images and memories swirled around the edges of his mind, slowly coming into focus. A second voice spoke, monotone, carefully devoid of all emotion.

"Razputin, you must wake up."

The young Psychonaut slowly regained consciousness, and found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. Unfamiliar so far as his last memory was, anyway. He was sprawled one of the seats in the jet, where several people were milling about. Directly above him was Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello, both of whom were watching him. Milla's eyes were full of concern. Sasha's were safely hidden behind the crimson lenses of his sunglasses, though his jaw was tense. Raz blinked at both of them, then peered around the room. Oleander was in the pilot's seat, separate from the others. Screak's squad was gathered around Sam, who still seemed to be unconscious, and dreaming. Lili was hovering over a pale, dirt stained Truman Zannatto slumped in a chair, while Ford was hunched over the unconscious child from the academy.

"You're awake. Good." Sasha said as Milla helped Raz sit up.

"What...happened?" The bleary-eyed agent muttered, rubbing his eyes.

"Sasha found you outside of the building, collapsed. You were hit with a confusion grenade, darling. A powerful one by the looks of it."

"Well, that explains the singing insects." This earned him several strange looks from the others, and Sasha knelt down to Raz's eye level and began to examine him. Perhaps the younger agent had hit his head at some point? Confusion grenades did not usually cause outright hallucinations--at least, not the kind Sasha had experience with. Psychic powers were constantly shifting and evolving; perhaps Raz had come across a stronger or alternate version of it? If so, then the effects could be different from what they were used to dealing with.

While Sasha examined him, the young agent watched the others curiously. Milla moved over to Lili and gently laid a hand on the girl's shoulder and spoke softly to her. "What's going on, Sasha?"

"A great deal has happened since you've been unconscious. It seems our 'friend' from headquarters did not take kindly to the fact that we disobeyed his orders. We've been forced to flee the Shaded Glen." He cast a glance at the Shaded Glen agents, who seemed to be in deep conversation with one another. Agent DeLucion had moved to stand between his unconscious squadmate and Milla, as if he was shielding the man from her. There seemed to be some tension between the two; he'd have to inquire about it at some point later on.

"Oh. Where are we going?" His vision was returning to normal, much to his delight. He held his hand in front of his and waved it around just to make sure.

Sasha quirked a brow at him. "We're returning to Whispering Rock. It...well, it's really the only place we _can_ go to since we're apparently fugitives from justice. In fact, we should be nearing it soon."

Oleander's gruff voice echoed back to them. "Alright, we're getting close. Sit down and strap yourselves in. We'll land in the parking lot--wait, what the hell? Aw, dammit. Iceclaw! Take the controls. Sasha, Milla, the campers are still here!" He stormed over to a hatch in the roof of the jet and threw it open, levitating outside.

"Wait, wait...why are all of the campers here? Didn't we send them off?" Milla asked, looking over at Sasha who merely shrugged in reply and followed Oleander. Milla sighed and did the same. Razputin jumped up after the two of them, nearly braining himself on the jet's hatch. There was no way he was missing this!

The four of them levitated down to the ground, with Oleander charging forward to the group of milling campers. Even the bus to take them home was still sitting in the middle of the parking lot. It occurred to Sasha that no one had stayed behind to actually drive the campers back home; they all piled into the jet and left. Oh God, he could see the lawsuits now...

Oleander looked annoyed, and did what he did best whenever he was annoyed. Yell. "Alright recruits, someone better explain what's going on this instant or so help me, you'll be running laps til Christmas!"

Vernon stepped forward. "Well, you see, it's really a funny story--"

Oleander frantically pointed at Dogen. "You! Tell me what happened!"

Vernon droned on as if Oleander had never spoken, narrating his own version of the events while Dogen shyly stepped forward. "Well, we were all gonna get on the bus to go home, but everyone left--"

"And then I forgot to pack my toothbrush, so I ran back inside the bunk house, and then I realized that I did pack my toothbrush and started to leave--" Vernon was lost in his own story. Everyone pretty much ignored him.

Dogen continued. "Franke said she was gonna call her dad, but Milka started to have one of those scary visions. You know, like...like when she was in the main lodge during dinner that one night?" He looked over at Milla who gave him an encouraging smile. Heartened, the cadet continued. "Bobby screamed like a little girl when it happened."

"Did not!" Bobby said, deeply offended. A few of the other campers snickered in the background and he turned to glare at them.

"And then I saw this huge jet lift off and I thought, wow, that was cool! Then--" Vernon continued.

Sasha pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten. Where he summoned the patience necessary for dealing with children day in and day out was beyond his comprehension. The fact that the children had not returned to their parents was going to anger their families. He was not looking forward to taking those angry phone calls. Or the lengthy trials.

Dogen finished his story before Bobby pummeled him. The boy stared at his shoes, kicking at the dirt a little. "Well, when she woke up, she told us that we needed to stay. She said that Raz needed our help. So...we stayed. Chloe made this thingy--"

"A Voice Altering Modulator Device. Or VAMD for short." Chloe corrected. Sasha quirked a brow at the girl.

"--and made her voice sound like Coach Oleander's and called everyone's parents."

Chloe produced the VAMD, placed it against her throat, and spoke in perfect imitation of Oleander's voice. "Sorry for the inconvienence, but camp isn't over yet. Your child has yet to complete his or her training in the psychic martial arts and will not be allowed to leave until he or she has finished. Once agian, I apologize for any inconvienence."

"And then I saw Bobby running away from the parking lot, screaming in terror, so--"

"I did not scream!" Bobby said, glaring at Vernon, before beginning an argument with the would-be storyteller.

At this point, Oleander seemed at a loss for what to do. He looked to Sasha for help, realized that nothing good would come of it, then looked to Milla. She rolled her eyes at the two of them, stepping forward. "Well, children, since you all seem to have made up your minds...Unpack your bags and be ready for dinner. As you all know, it's at six o'clock sharp, and if you snooze, baby, you lose."

The campers all grinned then scurried off in various directions. Vernon walked off, continuing his story, with Bobby close behind him insisting that he did not, in fact, scream like a little girl. It was more like a yelp of surprise, or an angry, manly grunt.

Sasha, fighting off the beginnings of a migraine, idly wondered if it wasn't stupidity that brought him back to Whispering Rock year after year.

Milla sighed, "We can't let them stay, of course. We'll have to contact their parents."

Raz rubbed the back of his neck. "Won't they be suspicious if they get another call telling them that they actually do have to come pick up their kids?"

Oleander shifted from one foot to another. "Yeah, that'll make 'em kinda leery of us, Vodello."

"We can't put them in danger like this! They--"

Sasha interrupted the two of them before their argument escalated. They could argue for hours on end, each one too stubborn to listen to the other. "Enough! We will contact their parents tomorrow. Or at least argue about it. Right now, we have more important matters to tend to."

Oleander and Milla glared at each other for a short period of time, but both walked away. Oleander muttered something about finding enough food to feed the recruits while Milla muttered some obscene phrase in Portugese. Sasha looked up to the jet hovering above them and sent a set of orders to Iceclaw, instructing him how best to land the jet. When he was done, he looked over at the young agent. Raz was grinning from ear to ear. Sasha gave him a curious look.

"What?" Raz said, then shrugged. "It's good to be home."


	8. Source of Nightmares

**A/N: **Holy God, this took forever to write. (Eight different drafts! _Eight!_) I hope the wait was worth it for those of you who still read this thing.

**Chapter Eight: The Source of Nightmares**

When Andrews discovered that the Shaded Glen had been tipped off, the resulting fury was as methodical as it was cold. He ruthlessly interrogated the agents sent in to retrieve Raz and the others, found nothing, and dismissed him from his (Truman's) office in disgust. He then called Murphy into his office and began the whole routine from there. Murphy shrank back against the hard chairs Andrews had placed inside, fidgeting some.

"Do you know," Andrews began, his shrewd eyes focused on the redheaded agent in front of him. "What the punishment is for psychics who obstruct justice? I'm sure you're aware that it is much more severe than it would be for a non-psychic." Murphy did his best to try and restrain his fidgeting. Andrews was the sort to jump at the sight of any discomfort and use it to his advantage. "Someone tipped off the Shaded Glen, Murphy."

Murphy didn't entirely agree on Andrews' definition of 'justice', but he didn't feel obliged to point that out. He was fairly certain Andrews suffered some sort of defect of the heart—or lack thereof, as the case may be. "Larry's a known precognitive, sir. He may have seen this coming…He saw the assassination attempt on Truman clear enough."

Andrews quietly observed him, and then spoke again. "I had not thought of that, Murphy."

Murphy was suddenly very glad that Andrews wasn't nearly as smart as he looked. "That's probably the best explanation for it, sir. After all," And he strained to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "No sane agent would ever think of betraying their own."

* * *

Elsewhere, back at Whispering Rock, the campers had long ago gotten up with the morning sun and gone about their business. By the time breakfast had ended the only camper not accounted for was none other than Raz. 

The camp gathered in the main lodge every morning after Basic Braining for food and a break before their next training session. It was during this time that most of the campers saw each other—Milla was known to cook in the mornings and the food was considered edible. This was, however, not one of those mornings, as she and Sasha had spent the night trying to wake Truman with little success. The Shaded Glen agents were about to discover why most of the campers opted for cereal instead of cooked food in the morning.

"There's a fly in my oatmeal…" Screak said, poking the oatmeal with his spoon and the subsequently losing it in the substance. The fly sort of twitched before sinking down to the bottom. He thought he heard it cry, "Goodbye cruel world!" as it went down and he had a feeling that this was somewhat of a regular occurrence in Whispering Rock. For some reason that made him utterly depressed.

"There's a hair in my eggs…" Nick muttered to his companions, looking at the offending food. And, indeed, at the top of his egg, there rested a blatantly obvious white hair. He was also fairly certain he had asked for bacon, but it was curiously absent from his dish.

"There's pizza in my cereal!" Sevrin cried, deeply distraught. A few of the campers snickered at him. They had long ago learned to hide and store food when they could. "What the _hell_, man! _Screak_ could cook better than this! And he burned _water!"_ Sevrin, seemingly caught up in his tangent, turned and glared at Screak. "That was the worst Ramen ever!"

Screak glared back at him and muttered darkly before going back to his tug-of-war with the bowl of oatmeal. The demonic breakfast food had so far absorbed (and possibly eaten) half of his spoon and it was clearly a losing battle for Screak.

Ford chucked his spatula at Sevrin's head, earning himself another round of snickering from the campers and even a small smirk from Oleander. "Quit makin' all that noise! …And bring me back my spatula!"

It was when Sevrin retrieved Ford's spatula that Lili was ushered in by Milla. Sam immediately paled when Milla entered and shrank down over his breakfast, receiving several curious looks from his fellow agents and the campers alike. Lili was frowning and didn't look at all happy with Milla, but she was for the moment humoring her.

"I'm sorry, darling, but we just can't let you see him right now." She said, sounding both apologetic and authoritative. Lili didn't exactly glare at her, but her facial expression made it clear she wasn't happy with the situation. Milla sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're doing the best we can, sweetie. As soon as we..." She searched for the appropriate word. "…bring him back, you can see him, alright? You and Raz can see to your friends until then."

Lili muttered something noncommittal under her breath, looking somewhat dejected. She just couldn't seem to get a break. Once Milla was certain she wouldn't immediately try to sneak back into Sasha's lab to see her father or have, she left the lodge. Lili was content to watch Sevrin get beaten about the head by Ford for a short while before leaving the lodge and wandering about the woods the way she usually did whenever she found her current company lacking. For awhile, she meditated over some flowers growing near the GPC and, when she became bored, took pot shots at the wandering squirrels. When they started to shoot back, she decided to find another way to amuse herself. It then occurred to her that she hadn't seen Raz at all today.

She walked over to the boys' cabin and peered inside. The cabin was empty and dim save for the few shafts of sunlight that He was asleep on the bunk above Dogen's and tossing restlessly. Extremely restlessly. She frowned and levitated up to his sleeping form, watching him for a few moments before poking his head. "Hey, dork. It's one o'clock. Wake up."

When he didn't respond or even move, she poked him even harder. "Raz, c'mon." When that didn't work, she pulled back the covers and leaned over him, peering into his sleeping face.

Except his eyes were open. And he was staring directly into the ceiling above him. There was no sign of life in his eyes; it was if his spirit had left him. He was breathing as though he was asleep, but it was quite clear that he wasn't. Thoroughly creeped out and more than a little worried, Lili shook him lightly. "Raz? Raz! Wake up!"

* * *

"Milla, do you remember the Lindley case from a few years ago?" Sasha asked her, searching through one of the many boxes scattered around his lab. Ever since Sheegor came, he hadn't been able to find anything--there _was_ a method to his madness, after all. 

Milla quirked a brow at him. That case had been particularly trying for the both of them. Two identical twins had gone into a catatonic state after some particularly traumatizing event. The two were suffering from the same nightmares and, in fact, it had eventually been discovered that the nightmares somehow linked the two minds. The children were both telepathic and, being identical twins, may have had a link between them that caused the nightmares to spread. Sasha had been completely obsessed with the case. "I remember, but what does that--"

"I believe the same thing is occurring here. Between Razputin, Truman, and that child." He said, interrupting her and tossing aside a rather thick folder with the words 'Neural Osteodisassociation' written across it in bold letters. It landed with a solid_ thump_ in front of Sevrin, who just looked utterly lost. Sasha finally pulled out the correct file with a triumphant smile and flipped it open on his desk. "Their minds are linked through their nightmares."

Milla leaned over to peer at the file, lightly resting her hand on his shoulder for balance. He shifted the papers slightly so she could see them better. "Nightmare tunnels?" She supplied, looking back over to him after reading a few paragraphs on the report.

He snorted. "That's what Agent Bertillion calls them; I prefer a much more scientific term. But, yes, for the sake of simplicity, that's what they are." He then launched into an explanation for the others' benefit, pulling out various notes from the file before him, both to remind him of important facts and emphasize a few particular points. "Two minds have the same nightmare--perhaps both individuals experienced the same trauma at the same time. A good example of this would be sisters taken hostage in a bank robbery. The two have a nightmare based on the event at roughly the same time and thus a link is created between the two separate minds. Theoretically, a psychic entity could travel to another's mind by using these 'tunnels.' A few of the more reckless junior agents attempted to do so two years ago. They became entangled in each other's nightmares."

"What happened to them?" Larry asked when Sasha handed him the report. Screak peered over his superior's shoulder to read some of the excerpts.

"They never woke up. To this day, they lie asleep in the basement of Psychonauts HQ." Sasha said tiredly, massaging his forehead. They were having enough trouble trying to wake Truman and now it seemed Razputin was suffering from the same thing. He hadn't slept in three days and it was beginning to show.

* * *

As Sasha would soon discover, Raz was having one of the longest recorded nightmares in Psychonauts history. He stirred in his bunk every now and then, alone in the boys' cabin, muttering in restless sleep. The rest of the campers had gotten up hours ago and simply left him alone--it wasn't uncommon for psychics to have poor sleeping habits, and a few of those with rather strong abilities (notably telepathists and a few clairvoyants) never slept at all, fearing to dream dreams not their own. 

His dreams would later prove to be of such great interest that future generations of psychics would study them for years to come. For now, all he knew that he was dreaming, and possibly having a nightmare. It started innocently enough, as most nightmares do. He was in the woods surrounding the camp, near Sasha's lab--or a twisted, surrealistic version of them, where the trees swayed against the wind and the ever present squirrels were nowhere to be found. Most of his fellow campers were there, standing in the middle of a clearing, some (notably Bobby and Benny) were brainless and shambled around in circles, while others ignored them and spoke amongst themselves. Elka was speaking the loudest (as per usual), to an uninterested JT and one very annoyed Chops. Strangely enough, there was also a young boy that Raz didn't recognize, watching them all carefully from the shadow of a twisted tree. None of the others seemed to notice him.

"I'm telling you, Agent Nein is a vampire! He's pale, lives underground..." At this point, there was a pause and she seemed to be thinking very hard on what else she should could say to prove her case. A brief moment after her pause, her face lit up and she spoke again, using a tone twice as loud as was necessary. "And he's got an accent!"

"No way! He's a robot! That's why he's always messing with all of those electronics and stuff. Besides, vampires can't go out into the sunlight, Elka, and he's been outside plenty of times." Chops said, inwardly hoping to beat stupid at its own game.

He was sorely disappointed when Elka eagerly latched onto the idea. She jumped up and down, clapping her hands in excitement before grabbing JT's arm, looking as though she had just made a world shattering discovery. "Oh my God, he's a _robot_ _vampire!_ He sucks out blood AND oil!"

Raz simply stared at them while Chops walked over to the nearest tree and smacked his head against it repeatedly. He continued to do so until Elka, apparently growing tired of creating rumors about the camp counselors, declared (obnoxiously, in Chops' opinion) that they should all "go out and DO something!"

"Like what?" JT asked, trying to pry his arm out of her death grip and failing miserably. Raz saw Chops idly consider a rock near his feet and then look at Elka's head. The young Psychonaut wondered if the boy would actually throw it.

"Like...um," She could tell she was losing them fast, and so glanced around for some sort of inspiration. When she saw Raz, a grin formed. "Like a game!" Raz didn't like the look she was giving him. Chops looked mildly interested, but seemed to be trying to hide it.

JT scratched up beneath the giant cowboy hat he always wore. "What kinda game are ya talkin' about?"

"Like...uh...Hide and Seek!" She declared triumphantly. JT and Chops both looked interested, more than likely hoping to lose Elka in the chase. She mistook their hope for enthusiasm and continued. "And Raz is It!" She pointed a finger at him.

Raz blinked, wondering when Elka decided to take notice of him. Usually he didn't mind when people noticed him, but with Elka, he made an exception. "What?"

"Count to ten!" Elka shouted at him before turning invisible and running off. JT and Chops did the same. Raz stared for a few moments, and then called out to the empty air around him.

"What's the point of counting if you're turning invisible? That is so cheap!" When no response came, he sullenly began to count to ten. The woods became darker as he counted, the trees still swaying to an unfelt wind, though they made no noise. The only sound in the entire clearing was Raz's voice, counting. The young boy Raz had noticed before still stood on the outskirts of the clearing, still stood there, watching quietly. When Raz finished counting, he was the first person he saw and, grinning, ran over to the boy. "Hey! Are you playing?"

The boy silently shook his head in response, his wide eyes watching him innocently. Raz's shoulders sank. "Oh. Well, did you see where they went?"

He grinned and nodded excitedly. Raz grinned back. "Great! Can you show me where?" The boy nodded one more and ran off into the woods. Raz was quick to follow him, though he lost his guide in the caves that, had he actually been in the Whispering Rock camp and not a dream world version of it, would lead to Lake Oblongata. He slowed to a stop and glanced around curiously. Where'd that little kid run off to?

"Hey! Kid!" He cried out into the thick darkness, moving inside the tunnel. His voice echoed in the dank cavern and repeated parodies of his call back to him. "Where'd you go—"

It was when Raz entered the tunnel that things began to get weird. The tunnel wasn't the one he knew from Whispering Rock; it was too dark. There were too many shadows and, what's more, the shadows _moved, _even though there was no light strong enough to create them. They slithered along the ground, circling him, and then, all at once, shot towards the young Psychonaut and encircled his body.

He felt a strange tug somewhere inside him. Not a physical force, but something else, as if some part of him was being forcibly dragged out. If he was conscious, he'd have realized that his astral self was being pulled away from his body and into another's mind, much in the same way Coach Oleander did back when he first reported for Basic Braining. The effect wasn't noticed at all in the physical world; no one was looking for it. It was, however, extremely noticeable in the mental world Raz had unknowingly been dragged into. Everything suddenly lost its dreamlike quality--it was all stark and fully formed, startlingly real, as if a fog had been swept aside.

He was still in the tunnel, but the air around him seemed denser than before, tighter. He still couldn't see anything except for that flickering light at the end of the tunnel, but it suddenly seemed a lot farther away than before. To make matters worse, his movements became sluggish, as though he were wading through a deep pool. When he realized that he had actually stumbled into an underwater pool in the tunnel, he began to panic, and frantically clawed his way through water--it was definitely water, couldn't be anything else--trying to out swim the dark shadowed hand he knew was behind him, only inches away, brushing against his legs, trying to pull him under into the cold, dark--

He came to a stop at the end of the cave, staggering into the light, chest heaving, grasping the rock around him and staring at the landscape that had quite suddenly changed on him. He found himself perfectly dry and, save for a trembling hand, was completely unharmed. The tunnel opened up to a dreary playground that Raz didn't recognize. It seemed vaguely similar to the one he found in Boyd's twisted mind, and yet, it wasn't the same. The playground in Boyd's mind had been pristine, almost _too _normal. Here the exact opposite held sway. The grass here was yellow and lifeless, and the sky was filled with swirling storm clouds. The only light in the entire area was provided by the frequent lightning flashes that ripped across the sky, briefly casting stark light across the wholly pathetic looking land. The slides were steep, almost vertical drops, and their surfaces were rusted and uneven. A swing hung by a single chain, the other having rusted and broken free of it's fastening, twirled slowly in the wind, dragging the other chain through the grey dirt beneath it. The rest of the equipment didn't seem to be in much better shape. Most of it was ruined, and the rest looked downright unsafe. Strange figments flitted across the ruined landscape; crows that watched him too closely, squirrels that were starved down to skin and bone, their fur hanging off of their thin forms.

The boy was nowhere to be found. Raz was alone.


End file.
